


Brothers by Blood and by Another

by unkissed



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Brother/Brother Incest, Dubious Consent, Exhibitionism, F/M, Infidelity, Invisibility Cloak, M/M, Multi, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Not Canon Compliant, POV Alternating, POV Second Person, Polyamory, Threesome, Voyeurism, abusive language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-04-25 04:33:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 16
Words: 19,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14370987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unkissed/pseuds/unkissed
Summary: This is the magic of our blood.  The blood of our father that runs through our veins.  His mother isn’t mine, but she shaped him and breathed life into him, and gave him to me.  His love is a gift.  You would be stupid to refuse it.(Rape/NonCon tag is there for nonconsensual voyeurism and attempted sexual assault. Underage tag is there for things that happen between people who are 15/16.)





	1. James

**Author's Note:**

> I know that incest is a hard pass for a lot of you. But if it makes a difference to you, know that this one is more about love than it is about sex. However, ngl, there is quite a lot of sex.
> 
> Also, the Rape/NonCon tag is there for the nonconsensual voyeurism and attempted sexual assault. Underage tag is for things that happen when they’re 15/16.
> 
> Catie Finnigan belongs to Colorfulstabwound. Sorry for abusing and misusing your OC! 
> 
> Dedicated to my best friend and enabler, Colorfulstabwound.

You were ten-years-old when you learned that the perfect Potter family was not as perfect as it seemed.  It had taken you an entire decade to see it, not that you can blame yourself for being so blind. After all, your life had been charmed, being the first-born favorite son of legends, and legendary in your own right.

Albus was never going to be the favorite, no matter what he did to endear himself to your parents, and no matter what you did to infuriate them.  Up to this point, you thought you were just inherently superior.  But now you know you’re the favorite son by default.

Now that you see the cracks in your family, you cannot un-see them, even though they’ve been hastily patched up.

 

Albus was nine when this all went down.

The fact that he was a mere eleven months younger than you should have been your first clue, had you been looking for reasons why mum always seemed so cold towards Albus for as long as you can remember.

It all began, or ended, depending on how one looks at it, with Albus being scolded for doing something stupid.  Whatever he’d done - you can’t even remember what it was - was nothing worse than you were capable of.  Mum had lost her shit completely, which she was oft to do with Al, and shouted, “You are every bit your dad’s son – selfish and reckless and thoughtless!”

 _Funny._  That was you, described perfectly.  Your selfishness and recklessness and thoughtlessness had never angered your mother the same way Albus had.  You believe she actually _liked_ the fact that you shared your dad’s Gryffindor impetuousness.

“I’m your son too, mum!” Albus wailed, red-faced with anger, cheeks wet with furious tears – he was always emotional.  “You never bloody treat me like I am!”

“That’s because you’re NOT,” mum growled.  “You are no son of mine.  You are an ungrateful parasite.  You ruin everything.”

You thought she was just saying it out of anger – she could be a bitch sometimes.   _Gods_ , were you wrong.

Dad sent mum over to Granny’s to go cool off, and sat Albus down for a talk.  Dad hadn’t asked you and Lily to make yourselves scarce, but he also didn’t call you closer.  You were close enough for this conversation, as you would soon find out.

“Albus, first know that I love you,” dad began, calm and quiet and gentle as he always was, no matter what Albus had thrown at him.  “I have always loved you. Nothing has ever changed that, and nothing ever will.”

Albus seemed only slightly comforted by this, but he continued to cry silently.

Dad went on.  “Mum… well, I had hoped that she would eventually come around.  She still might. But I can’t expect her to. I shouldn’t have expected her to love you.  It wasn’t fair to her, and it isn’t fair to you.”

And Albus, _goddamn Albus_ – he was so fucking astute, even at such a young age, and you just had to admire that about the little wanker.  Dad didn’t even have to verbalize it explicitly to Albus, because Albus quickly arrived at the truth on his own – maybe he’d always felt it.  

“She’s not my mother, is she?  IS SHE?”  It was more of an accusation than a question.

Dad shook his head slowly.  He had the decency to look Albus directly in the eyes – eyes that were identical to his own.  “She’s not.”

Albus began to sob again.  “I knew it. I bloody _knew_ it.  She’s never loved me.”

Dad reached out to comfort Albus, but Albus recoiled from his embrace.  So dad just gave him space.

Lily was only seven and it was all too much for her.  She glanced at you with wide eyes that were becoming glassy with impending tears.  Her world was shattering. You took her hand and she squeezed it, holding on for strength.

 

It all made sense to you now.  The background of your life had come to the forefront and revealed the ugly truth that had always been there.  Why mum had been so harsh on Albus. Why dad had always been the one to comfort Albus when he was hurt or upset.  Why Granny had been so standoffish to Albus. Why your uncles and aunts seemed to squirm uncomfortably when interacting with Albus, trying to be kind, but not so kind as to anger your mother.

 

“Who is she?  My real mother?” Albus asked, still breathless from his ceaseless crying.

“Your mother was an auror.  Athena McAlister. She was my first partner at the DMLE.  We were having an affair while mum, er… _Ginny_ was pregnant with James.  You see, Ginny and I were already in a rough spot in our marriage when she unexpectedly became pregnant.”

Lily asked, sad and horrified, “What is that?  What is having an affair?”

Dad turned to her, looking ashamed.  “It means I was with another woman when I should have been with mum, and only mum.”

Lily finally burst into tears and shouted, “I hate you!”  

She dropped your hand and ran off to her room. Dad gave her space, the way he gave Albus space.  It was a lot to process, and his hugs weren’t going to make it better.  Maybe you should have gone to comfort her. But you needed to know the whole story, especially now that you were implicated in it.

Albus asked, still somewhat hysterical, “I don’t fucking understand.  Why are you still with her – with mum – Ginny – whatever the fuck? And why am I not with my real mother?”

Dad explained, still calm despite the fact that his nine-year-old son was hurling foul language at him, “Some time after James was born, I patched things up with mum, er, Ginny.  I broke things off with your mother, Athena, and changed divisions at the DMLE. I didn’t know she was pregnant with you. She kept you from me because, well… she loved you, and she knew it would sentence you to a life of undue shame if anyone knew who you really were, and the circumstances by which you were conceived.”

“But she got rid of me?” Albus lamented, “What the fuck?  Am I such a horrible person that nobody fucking wants me?”

Then Dad spoke plainly, perhaps a bit sharply to get Albus to stop carrying on, “She’s dead.  Your mother is dead.”

It was then, that Albus completely crumbled.  He fell apart, and dad was there to catch him in his arms.  As they embraced, you wondered if you should be giving them privacy.  You suddenly felt like an intruder – a reluctant witness to the moment that Albus’ world was turned upside down.  But you stayed, because your curiosity was still getting the best of you.

“What happened to her?” Albus asked, weeping into dad’s chest.

It was dad’s turn to crack.  His voice faltered, clearly wracked with pain and guilt.  “When you were about six months old, she took an assignment in Norway.  She was killed. The suspect she was trailing shot a hex at her, point blank.

The only person who knew who had fathered you, had been Athena’s sister – your aunt, Artemis.  She’s much younger than your mother, and wasn’t able to care for you – she’s autistic, you see.  But she knew to take you to me.

I begged Ginny to accept you into our family, to treat you as if you were her own.  And she did, reluctantly so.

You have always been such a lovely child, I thought mum would eventually grow to feel something for you… but she hasn’t.  And it has nothing to do with you, Al, because you are wonderful. You’re bright, and kind, and the perfect son, really. But mum will never get over the fact that I cheated on her, and you will always be a living, breathing, embodiment of my infidelity.”

Dad had used a lot of big words to explain everything - he’s always been this way, never one to talk down to children or to simplify his language for them.  Albus understood the very adult concepts that dad had shared because, not only was Albus well read, he was remarkably good at reading people. And you understood it because you, being a precocious and curious child, had always known more than you were supposed to.

None of you were the same after that.  You couldn’t expect to be.

But the truth that should have driven a deeper wedge between you and who you now know to be your half brother, only brought you closer.  Your eyes were open now, and you approached Albus with a new perspective. He was your brother, but he was also not – and you knew you had to work harder to make him feel like you were family.  You owed it to him. You were probably the reason dad strayed from mum in the first place.


	2. Albus

When James goes away to Hogwarts for the first time, life at home alone with Ginny and Lily is awkward and quiet.

Dad is away on assignment more often than not. When dad goes away, it makes Ginny even more unbearably icy. She doesn’t have to be civil to you for dad’s sake. You know that part of her uneasiness comes from wondering if dad is screwing somebody else while he’s away. She can never trust him because your very existence reminds her that Harry Potter can’t keep it in his pants. You can hardly blame her for her mistrust.

You feel like you’re not related to Lily at all – it’s as if she is a direct clone of her mother. Lily is a small duplicate of all that bitterness and spitfire that is her mother. Lily shouldn’t hate you, but she does, because her mother does, and she strives to be just like her in every way. Lily has never forgiven your dad for cheating on her mum, and she has never forgiven you for reopening the rift between her parents.

At least you have James. James has never stopped being your brother. He doesn’t have to treat you as his brother – you’re just his bastard half brother who deserves nothing. But he has been a better brother to you in the year since the truth came out, than he ever has been. He’s the only one you can truly call family and feel it all the way down to your bones.

 

When James comes home for Christmas, you hug him so tightly that you threaten to crush his chest.

You know that you’ll be alone in a house of strangers the moment James leaves again for school. So you savor every moment he’s home. You listen raptly to stories of his triumphs at school – about all the friends he has made and all the girls that fancy him and the stellar marks he’s already achieving in his classes.

If it were a year ago, you’d probably roll your eyes at how full of himself James is. You still roll your eyes and tell James that his ego has surpassed the size of his fat head because that’s just the way you two are. But those same eyes that roll up to the ceiling every time James drawls on about how brilliant he is, also gaze upon him with adoration. And when he’s regaling you with tales of mischief, you know he’s embellishing just to impress you. You feel special that you are important enough to him to be worthy of impressing.

The thought of him leaving at the end of Christmas holidays makes your chest hurt. That ache won’t leave you the entire time James is home. You hadn’t realized how miserably alone you’ve felt in his absence until James had come back and reminded you what it is to be happy.

You won’t be able to stand the distance between Godric’s Hollow and Hogwarts, let alone the distance between his bed and yours in the room you share. On Christmas eve, you crawl into his bed and he objects only for a minute before resigning to let you sleep next to him.

“Missed you, you scrawny bastard,” he says, as he sleepily drops a kiss on the top of your head. You feel like you’ve never been more loved. Not even by your own father.

Because James doesn’t have to love you. He chooses to.


	3. James

When Albus finally joins you at Hogwarts, things immediately go the complete opposite of the way they are supposed to.

He is sorted into Slytherin in front of a stunned crowd in the Great Hall, rather than into Gryffindor with you.  He should be falling into place with his big brother and all your Weasley cousins, but Albus is a world apart.

Actually, now that you think about it, Albus has been distancing himself from your cousins ever since the truth came out, even though your cousins still don’t know.  So he seems quite fine being separate from them.

Still, he shouldn’t be fine being separated from you.  And you shouldn’t be bitter that he’s found fast friends in Slytherin – he is entitled to have something of his own for once.  But you can’t help bristling every time you see Albus and that Malfoy kid together, acting like they’ve been BFF’s their whole lives even though they have only just met.

The closeness you share with Albus at home is not enacted at school.  That’s partly his fault for being so vehemently Slytherin, and partly your fault for being so… _you_.  You’re popular and charming and already on the Gryffindor quidditch team – you can’t be seen fraternizing with the enemy, even if the enemy is fraternally related to you.  

You’re both content to stay in your own circles and to interact only to playfully slap the other upside the head in passing.

 _“Hey little shit,”_ you’ll say, smirking at the way you’ve caught him off guard with a well aimed smack, as he’s arm-in-arm and deep in conversation with the Malfoy kid while walking to classes.

And when he catches you off guard while you’re holding court at the Gryffindor table at dinner, he’ll say, _“Hey big shit,”_ as he smirks at the way he’s put your artfully disheveled hair out of purposeful disarray with a swift tousel.

These are terms of endearment for you two, and the only way you outwardly acknowledge your brotherhood and your love for one another.

 

It is not until you go home for Christmas that you fall into your old ways, when you let down your guard and you tell each other all the things you couldn’t while at school.  He nestles under your arm, lying next to you on your bed on Christmas eve, and you each try to one-up the other with your stories.

Apparently, Albus and the Malfoy kid, who you now concede has a first name (Scorpius, of all ghastly names), are threatening to unseat you and your cohorts as the reigning champions of mischief at Hogwarts.

You know that it had been a huge controversy when the portrait of the singing lady, frame and canvas and all, had suddenly relocated to a random corridor in late November.  You cannot hide the fact that you are impressed when Albus reveals that he and Scorpius had been the mysterious culprits.

You already start to formulate your next epic prank in your head, hell bent on topping your little brother’s antics with your own.  You’re driven partly by ego, and partly by Albus’ eyes – you want to make them shine with wonder and admiration the way they used to.

 

On the last night at home before it is time to return to school, Albus murmurs against the side of your arm, “I wish it could always be like this… but I’m not stupid enough to think it really can be.”

You close your eyes and sigh quietly.  You don’t answer him. It had not even occurred to you that you couldn’t always be this close, until he said it – you assumed he’d always come back to you and be your little brother again, whenever you returned home.

Maybe he’s just being cautious.  He’s learned that love is not unconditional.  He’s learned never to expect it.


	4. Albus

Dad isn’t going to be home for Christmas this year.  He is going on an extended mission to America that could last six months.  In preparation for his absence, he gives you and your siblings presents before you go off to Hogwarts in September.  And maybe he’s overcompensating for his absence, because these aren’t your average Christmas gifts.

He gives you a small wooden chest.  The chest is secured closed by a gold lock.  But he doesn’t give you a key.

“This box only unlocks for someone who shares my blood,” dad tells you with a small smile.

You know he means well, but you feel like this is a test. Ginny is staring at you with thinly veiled bitterness.

“Go ahead, Al," dad encourages you, "Open it. Put your hand around the lock and it will open for you.” 

You hold your breath.  You have been made to feel like an outsider your whole life, and so you doubt the validity of your blood, even now as your father tries to prove it to you with this gesture.  Your eyes close. You close your fingers tentatively around the metal – it is warm with magic. There is a soft click. You exhale slowly. When you open your eyes, the lock is open.

You glance up at your father with a smile.  You try to avoid Ginny’s eyes, but you can’t help flashing a tiny triumphant smirk her way.

Inside the box is a blue and white knit blanket.  You pull it out and smell it because you know what this is, even before dad tells you.  It smells of baby powder and faintly of petrol. You know the legend of Harry Potter, just as well as all wizards do.

“This was the blanket I was wrapped in, when I was taken from my home and sent to The Dursleys,” he explains.

What goes unsaid makes you cry.  You can’t even be arsed to care that you’re crying in front of Lily and Ginny and your smug brother.

This is the blanket that held Harry Potter the day his parents died.  Harry Potter never knew his parents. You never knew your mother. The mother that raised you, and the mother that raised him, each bore no love for their adopted sons.  This, almost as deeply as your blood, binds you and your father – this shared sorrow of never fully knowing where you came from, other than through stories.

You have never asked about your birth mother, beyond what dad had told you.  Her name was Athena. She was an auror. She died while on assignment. That’s all you’ve ever known. Even now, you don’t want to know more.   It’s easier to live this way.

You thank your dad with a tearful whisper.  “I love it… Thank you.” You want to hug him, but you haven’t hugged in ages.  It would feel weird to do it now, when your half sister and her mother are glaring at you like you’re the mangy stray dog that dad brought home fourteen and a half years ago.”

Lily is gifted with dad’s old Nimbus 2000, restored to all its shiny glory.  She’s thrilled. You’re happy for her, even though she can’t say the same about you.

And then James…

_Fucking James…_

James receives something so bloody cool, so infinitely incredible, so utterly priceless, that you start to feel a bit slighted by the gift dad chose for you.

“Oh… my… fucking… GODS,” says James.

Ginny doesn’t bother to admonish him for his language.  She never does – only _you_ get reprimanded for dropping f-bombs.

James exhales, “Is this…?  Is this really…? How is this not in a museum?”

You haven’t seen him express this much unabashed excitement in ages – he’s always so cool and aloof.  It’s pretty fucking adorable, and you can’t help but giggle.

“What good is it as a historical artifact?  Might as well use it, yeah?” dad says.

James pulls the swath of dark fabric from the box, throws it over his head, and then both he and the cloth disappear.

“Can you see me?” James practically squeals.

“No!” I exclaim, equally excited, “You’re bloody invisible!”

James reverently removes the Invisibility Cloak from his head and cradles it like it is a dear child in his arms.  “ _Sweet Merlin_ , you and I are going to have so much fun together…,” he speaks to it in a breathy whisper, as if it is a secret that James Sirius Potter plans to do very bad things while invisible.

Ginny chuckles, “Oh, Godric, here we go… Write out that Gringott’s bank note for bail now, Harry.”

You’re too excited for James that you can’t even be arsed to care that Ginny finds her son’s criminal tendencies to be endearingly amusing.

Lily pouts and storms off to her room, muttering, “James gets bloody _everything_ good.”

You would be right there with her, jealous and bitter.  But you know James well, and he will be more than happy to share the cloak with you… as long as he gets to join in on your fun.


	5. James

Christmas isn’t the same this year.  You’re only home because you know it would otherwise disappoint mum if you chose to stay at Hogwarts.  But being home when dad isn’t around always feels weird. Mum is tense, as she usually is when dad goes away.  Albus is unusually quiet – he always is when dad isn’t there to reign in mum’s cruelty. And Lily is still being a petty little brat, who has decided to hate you because dad gave you the Invisibility Cloak.

You can’t relax at night and fall back into place with Albus like you always do.  But it has nothing to do with your relationship with your brother.

It has everything to do with your relationship with Catie Finnigan.  You’ve never been one to keep a regular girlfriend, preferring instead to mess around outside the confines of monogamy.  But Catie is one of the girls who was consistently up for some serious snogging.

Just before you had left Hogwarts for Christmas, aided by the Invisibility Cloak, you and Catie had snuck out of the Gryffindor dorms at night to go snog in a disused classroom.  She had sat on top of a desk, pulled up her skirt, and urged you to touch her. You haven’t been able to get her hot little cunt out of your head since that night.

Just thinking about the way her cotton knickers slid off her thighs makes you hard.  And when you think about the way it felt to sink your fingers into her – how soft and wet and tight and so fucking good – you have to take care of your screaming erection.  Never mind the fact that she promised she’d return the favor and suck you off good and proper upon your return to school.

You are not about to let your little brother into your bed for a Christmas eve snuggle this year – not when you’ve been in desperate need of a wank ever since you stepped off the Hogwarts Express.  Besides, you’re sixteen now and he’s fifteen, and you probably won’t fit together on the bed anymore.

You conveniently use the size of the bed as an excuse to bar Albus from getting in with you when he tries to nudge you over with his knee.  But the forlorn sigh and sad look he gives you almost makes you relent.

“I just miss you, Jamie,” he mumbles sadly, scratching the back of his neck absently, pouting slightly.

He doesn’t often call you _Jamie_.  When he’s at school, he comes up with myriad fond epithets for you, most having to do with excrement.  You’re apt to do the same. But here, you’re allowed to be brothers – _really_ be brothers – and it never truly feels like home until you and Albus can be yourselves.  So when he drops the literal shitty nicknames and calls you by the name he only uses when you’re alone, your cool façade melts away.

You heave a reluctant sigh.  “Fine. Hog the covers, though, and you’re on the floor, yeah?”

When he gets into bed, it is only now that you realize just how much Albus has grown, judging from how very little space there is between you.  He has to press himself close to you in order to keep from falling off the bed, because _damn it_ , you won’t be forced to lie on your side to accommodate him in _your_ bed.

It takes a while to get comfortable, now that your limbs and his limbs are so lanky these days.  But when he finally settles into you, you feel warm and easy. Conversation comes just as naturally as your intimacy.

“Tell me one dirty secret and I’ll tell you two,” Albus says.

“Two?  Well shit, that’s just bragging,” you reply.

“Fine.  Two for two.  Me first,” he says, clearly eager to share his exploits.

“Let me guess. That was you and Malfoy who toilet papered The Whomping Willow,” you hazard.

Albus snorts.  “Oh please. That’s a first year stunt.  We’re fifth years now. We go hard or go home.”

“Professor Ogilvie’s girdle on the flagpole of Memorial Tower?” you guess again.

Albus groans impatiently, “Shut up already and just let me speak.  Incidentally, yes, Ogilvie’s girdle was us. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you.”  He takes a deep breath before speaking, and you already know by that pause that whatever he says next is going to be huge.  “I’m gay. Me and Scor are, erm… boyfriends, I guess.”

You don’t know how to swallow this.  You know how you’re supposed to react.  You’re supposed to be the wonderful, supportive big brother he’s always counted on, and you’re supposed to tell him you love him no matter what.  You’re not supposed to feel punched in the stomach.

When you don’t react, he continues, just as excitedly as before, “I kissed him at a party at the end of the summer.  I thought it was just a one-off thing because we were both a little drunk. But when we got back to school, he kissed me again and we’ve been snogging ever since, so I think we’re kind of together now.”

Every time Albus refers to him and Scorpius kissing, it tugs on your insides, making your abdomen feel tighter and tighter until you can hardly breathe.  But you are James Sirius Potter, and you are a pro at not letting your feeling show.

“Knew it.  Sebastian owes me five galleons,” you lie.  You hadn’t suspected that Albus and the Malfoy kid had anything going on other than a gross Slytherin bromance.  You feel stupid for not seeing how keen they were on each other before.

And the whole gay thing?  Yeah, you also should have seen that.  But you never thought of Albus as a sexual being before, so thinking of him as a homosexual just never crossed your mind.

“Congrats on joining the Rainbow brigade, bro’,” you say without malice. “If you don’t make me the best man at your gay wedding, I’m going to disown you, though.”

Every word you just uttered fondly is a complete lie, including the fondness.  You’re deeply jealous. You have no idea where this intense possessiveness is coming from, and it scares you.  You hate the Malfoy prat for taking Albus away from you, even though there is absolutely zero logic in that.

Albus can’t be taken, because Albus isn’t yours to keep.  He isn’t yours to keep stunted emotionally and sexually, forever your little brother.  The thought of Albus in a relationship with the Malfoy spawn makes you twitch with anger, not because Scorpius is a boy, but because Albus probably loves him and Albus isn’t supposed to love anyone.

Albus isn’t supposed to love anyone but you.


	6. Albus

It’s New Year’s Eve.

You know you’re just a couple more days away from returning to Hogwarts, back into Scorpius’ arms.  You are determined to ask him, once and for all, where you two stand, because you’d like to be more than friends with benefits.

Until then, you might as well stop worrying and try to enjoy your time at home with James because you know he won’t give you the time of day once you’re back at school.

As expected, dad is still on assignment.  Ginny can’t stand the awkwardness of having a house full of children who won’t talk to her.  Even Lily is brushing her off. So she leaves the three of you under the care of your twenty-two-year-old god brother, Teddy, and goes to a cocktail party with her friends.

You and James know that Teddy, young as he is, won’t let you have the sort of fun you should be having on New Year’s eve.  James slips a drop of sleeping draught into Teddy’s pumpkin juice at dinner, and he’s asleep on the sofa as soon as television coverage of the festivities in London kicks off.  Lily can’t be arsed to care about any of you, and leaves the house to join an impromptu party at a friend’s.

A bottle of liquor nicked from the cabinet is passed between you and your brother as you both sit on your bed.  Neither of you are used to hard drinking, and the Ogden’s touches you swiftly. James is an affectionate drunk, you discover.  And you… you’re just a lame drunk.

Your head is in his lap as he plays with your hair, telling you about the gross things he did to Catie Finnigan.  The more he talks about her lady bits, the more resolute you are in your homosexuality. His familiar, drawling, cocky voice, slurred by alcohol, lulls you to sleep and you pass out before midnight.

When your bladder wakes you up in the small hours of the night, James is no longer in your bed.  He’s now in his own bed, but he isn’t sleeping. You know this because you peek across the dim room and spy him undoubtedly wanking under the covers.  You hear the rhythmic sound of him moving against the tented sheets. When you get up to go to the bathroom, he immediately stops and pretends to be asleep.

As you relieve yourself, your head feels fuzzy and your body feels warm.  You’re still drunk. Even after you’ve taken care of your bladder, there is still a bodily need, nudging at you from the inside out.  You know what it is, but you can’t bring yourself to address it.

Not now.  It’s not a good time.  If you wank in the bathroom, James will know you’re doing it because he’s still awake and there’s no reason for you to take five minutes to piss.

So you swallow that feeling down, adjust your half-hard prick in your pajama bottoms, and quietly walk back into your bedroom, only to find that James is missing from his bed.  Maybe he’s gone down for a snack, or to finish himself off in private somewhere.

Wherever he is, you’re decidedly alone now, and there’s no reason to torture yourself by abstaining.  If you focus and think about Scorpius’ hot mouth, you might be able to come in two minutes, possibly saving you the humiliation of James walking in on you.

You close your eyes, pull out your dick, and think about Scorpius’ lips – those lips that have tasted yours and whispered devilish things into your ear – lips that would fit so well around your cock.  Your fist speeds over your erection, but you find it difficult to reach that pinnacle of arousal. You are a lame drunk in every way, apparently.

You try to imagine what it would feel like to sink your cock into Scorpius’ perfect, shapely arse, but you have almost no reference point.  The memory of James’ voice enters your head.

_“So fucking soft, like a ripe peach.  Yet so bloody tight, like a glove made just for me.  And so goddamn hot, I felt like I was going to melt inside her.  Oh my gods, Al, it was fucking amazing.”_

You don’t want to reach your climax thinking about your brother jamming his fingers inside a girl’s twat, but here you are, dashing towards the edge with that image in your mind.  You reach up to find the tissues you had stashed under your pillow in preparation for your release, but you hit something that is most definitely not your pillow.

It’s James.  You can’t see him, but you just know it.  He’s sitting at the top of your bed, under the Invisibility Cloak, with your head just below his crossed legs, and probably a smirk on his lips.  You’re too far gone to let this startling discovery keep you back from the edge. Your fingers find his leg and you clamp down on him as you come.

You don’t know why you had done it – why you had touched him and made him aware that you were aware of his presence – why you felt that he needed to suffer through your ejaculation.  It’s all a drunken, orgasmic blur.

And as you fall from that high, chest heaving, spunk congealing on your hand, you feel a sort of vindictive triumph.  If he was going to violate your privacy, you were going to violate his sense of familial propriety, if he has any propriety at all.

“Happy, pervert?” you mutter breathlessly.

“Clearly not as happy as you,” he jokes.  He stuffs a wad of tissues into your hand and you feel him moving off the bed.

He lets the Invisibility Cloak fall off his shoulders as he walks over to his own bed and plops down with a frustrated sigh.  “Fuck, I wish Catie were here.”

He’s not shy anymore when he whips out his dick and finishes what he had started.  You watch, because you can’t help yourself – it’s like a bad car crash, and you feel just as guilty for staring at the carnage that is James unabashedly wanking.  He’s doing it in a showy way, like he loves the fact that you can’t look away.

When he comes, he arches his back and tilts his head back, resultantly bending his neck in a swanlike curve. The outline he makes in the dark is oddly graceful.  He takes his bottom lip between his teeth – that shouldn’t make your pulse flutter, but it does.

When his spasms subside, he turns his head to look at you.  He smiles as if he’s just bested you in some way, and he whispers, “Goodnight, Albie,” before rolling over to turn his back on you.  “Love you, you scrawny bastard,” he mutters sleepily into his pillow.

You’re so spent after your own ministrations that you can’t be arsed to stay awake to question what just transpired between you.  Sleep finds you swiftly, as do lurid dreams of a blond angel and a dusky-haired devil stripping away your innocence.


	7. James

Albus never brings up what happened on New Year’s Eve.  Not on New Year’s day, and not the day after. It’s like it never happened.  Albus is too bloody good at burying things to ever let this surface again.

Now that you’re back at school, back into your usual state of fond, sibling and house rivalry, back to not talking openly, it will likely never come up, especially now that Albus is back with his Malfoy attachment.

Unlike the affection you and your brother share, his affection for Scorpius Malfoy is always on display.  They’re officially a thing now, apparently. You’re supposed to be thrilled for them. You want to be a supportive big brother, especially when the haters give Albus and Scorpius shit for being openly gay.  And for your part, you try. You stick up for them and you shut down those haters.

But when you happen upon Scorpius, separated from his other half for once, you take the opportunity to tell the git just how you feel about his relationship with Albus.

Your hand wrings tightly around his wrist to keep him from leaving as you hiss into his ear, “If you break Albus’ heart, I will break every gloriously angled cheekbone in your fucking face.”

“ _Gloriously angled_?” he asks you, brow quirked, not threatened in the least.

“You’re pretty.  Nobody is denying that.  But if you fuck with my brother’s fragile emotions, I will render you ugly.”

“ _Fragile emotions_?” he snorts amusedly.

“I’m watching you, Malfoy,” you threaten ominously before releasing his wrist.

“Yeah, I hear you like to watch, James,” he drawls smugly as he walks away, for once, stealing the last word from you.

_The little blond shit knows…_


	8. Albus

It isn’t until Easter holidays that you talk with James about the New Year’s Eve incident, but even then, you don’t really talk about it.  You tell him that you think it’s really cute that he gave Scorpius the big brother _break his heart, I break your face_ talk.

“Just give me the word, and I’ll do it,” he tells you casually, as if it’s something as banal as taking out the trash.

“He’s great, Jamie.  You don’t have to worry.  He’s my best mate. He’s not going to hurt me,” you assure him with chuckle.  “You and Caitie on the other hand…,” you propose with a pointed look.

James rolls his eyes.  “Oh please. You wouldn’t dare punch Caitie Finnigan in the face.  She’d pummel you into the ground.”

“I don’t doubt it.  I’ve seen what she can to do with her bludger on the quidditch pitch.  But I was talking about _you_.”  Your brow raises more sharply.  “She really fancies you. You’re gonna break her heart if you’re not careful.”

“She fancies my dick, is all,” James scoffs dismissively.

“You fuck her yet?” you ask casually.

James shrugs coolly.  “I might. If you can do me a solid and fuck off tonight, I might be able to convince her to sneak over and get the job done.”

“Where the hell am I supposed to go?” you complain.

“Fuck if I care.  Sleep on the couch.  Watch telly,” he suggests with a bored air.

“So unfair,” you pout.  “I miss my bed. I want to sleep in it.”

“Is that all you miss?” he asks you.  The look he gives you makes you shiver – the way he made you shiver when he bit his bottom lip on New Year’s Eve.

You blush and turn away, just a little bit furious.  You’re furious because he’s right. You’re not upset that you won’t be able to luxuriate in your own bed tonight.  You’re upset that James doesn’t want you in the room tonight. You’re upset because you missed your brother terribly, even though you now have Scorpius to cuddle up with at school.  It shouldn’t be an issue. It shouldn’t feel like rejection.

It was always going to end, wasn’t it?

You’re growing up.  You’re outgrowing the bed.  You’re outgrowing each other.

In the end, he sends off an owl to Catie and hands you the Invisibility Cloak.

“Stay,” he tells you.  It’s not a command. It’s not a reluctant resignation.  It’s a plea. You see it in his eyes.

You’ve never been able to tell him _no_.

Not that you want to.  You _should_ tell him _no_ – it’s madness.  The weird thing that happened on New Year’s Eve happened because you both were drunk and horny.  At least that’s what you need to tell yourself.

You need to tell yourself this half truth because you can not handle the entire truth, much like you could not handle the entire truth of your parentage.

And the entire truth is, you want to watch.  You’ve not been able to rid your mind of the thought of James Potter fucking his fist since you saw it in all its sticky hot glory.  But perhaps it is not so unholy to think of him this way because he’s only your _half_ brother.  

As if that even makes a difference.

He is your brother by blood and by another, but nevertheless your kin.

Whatever.  You can bail at any time.  You can help him satisfy his exhibition kink just as effectively from under the invisibility cloak as you can from somewhere else, as long as he thinks you’re there – and maybe that’s all that matters.

Wait… What are you thinking?  It’s not your job to satisfy his kinks.  He’s your brother.

_Half brother._

It shouldn’t matter.  He’s related to you.

_He’s so beautiful when he comes._

He shouldn’t have done that to you on New Year’s Eve.

_But you liked it… admit it… you loved it.  How thrilling it had been to feel him so close to you when you came. How hot it had been when he let you watch him stroke his dick._

You shouldn’t like it.  You shouldn’t watch. You shouldn’t touch.  You shouldn’t want.

_But you do want it.  You want to watch. You want to touch.  You want to feel his thrill passing like kinetic magic from his skin to yours._

And so here you are.  Sat perched at the head of his bed.  Watching your brother revelling in the bliss of Catie’s mouth as she goes down on him.   _Damn_ , if that doesn’t look fucking hot – James’ long, thick cock disappearing into her mouth.

“Fuck, you’re so good,” he moans.  You’ve never heard him speak this way – so enraptured and vulnerable and wrecked – and it makes you hot beneath the Invisibility Cloak.

He reaches up and slips his hand under the cloak to grasp your knee.  You cover his hand with your own. You can almost feel his pulse through his palm, racing with arousal and excitement.  And from the way he grips your knee, you know that part of that arousal and excitement is because of you.

And that is what makes you hard, despite your guilt and your shame.  He’s always affected you emotionally in some way or another.  This time, you’re affecting _him_.

His hand slips out from under your sweaty palm, he summons a condom from his nightstand, and for a moment, you wonder if that’s your cue to leave.  Maybe he’s used you for what you’re worth, and now it’s time for him to be alone with Catie. But he whispers _stay_ as he’s repositioning himself on the bed.  Catie thinks it is meant for her and she sprawls out on the bed for him.

You can’t even be arsed to care that there is now a naked girl lying on the bed an inch away from you, or that your muscles are becoming uncomfortably stiff from not moving for the past fifteen minutes.  Because James is fully on display, more fit than you even really knew, poised to drive his cock into the eager mass of flesh before you, and you are about to bear witness to the moment a precocious boy becomes a man.

Inwardly, you’re rooting for him, like it’s a very close quidditch match.  You want him to feel the rush of victory. James hesitates. He’s never been this far with a girl.  As well versed in foreplay as he is, he is still a bit awkward in his inexperience with this kind of sex.  He can’t quite get the angle right.

 _“You can do it, Jamie.  Tilt down a little. Bring her hips up a bit to meet you.”_ Your encouragement is unspoken, of course.  And it doesn’t come from experience, but from the unique angle from which you are watching.

When he finally gets it right, he _really_ gets it right, and you feel relief and bliss and elation for him.  He’s so fucking beautiful when his lips part and his eyes close and the blush from his cheeks spreads all the way up to his ears.  He hits a good, slow stride, and Catie can barely keep from moaning rapturously. Oddly, that makes you feel rather proud – the fact that your brother knows how to satisfy a woman.

It’s too good, and too much for James, as to be expected.  You know he’s close to finishing. His brows knit together.  His bottom lip gets caught in his teeth. He performs that blissful, graceful arch with his whole body, and _oh my gods_ he is so fucking beautiful.  His hips give a final thrust and he comes.

He startles you when he leans forward over Catie’s body and finds your forehead with his.  A hand holds you there as he pants softly while the final throes of his release ebb and flow.  You feel eternally blessed to have shared this moment with him.

“I’m glad you stayed,” he murmurs contentedly.  You know it is meant for you.

“Yeah, so am I,” says Catie.

“ _So am I._ ”  It goes unspoken.  But James knows it.


	9. James

“About last night…,” you say, over the sink you are sharing with him as you are both brushing your teeth.

“Already forgot about it.  We’re good,” Albus says casually, as if that’s what you want to hear.  He spits toothpaste into the basin.

You know damn well Albus hasn’t forgotten.  He likely never will. And _fuck him_ for never wanting to face the whole of the truth, like, _ever_.

“Are we?” you challenge him, staring at his reflection in the mirror.   _Goddamn_ , how did this little shit get to be taller than you since Christmas?

“Why wouldn’t we be?” he shrugs dismissively.

“I guess we’ll just have to see…”

 

It’s the last night of Easter holidays before you have to leave for Hogwarts when you hazard to test Albus’ claim that you two are still good.  You nudge him to let you into his bed.  Whereas you won’t roll onto your side to accommodate him in your bed, Albus is happy to let your take as much of the mattress as you need.  He still finds it difficult to get comfortable next to you – the bed really is much too small for you both.

Albus finally settles in beside you and is content to just lie there as if you’re still ten and he’s still nine.  He starts talking about his predictions for the quidditch season, even though he’s not on the Slytherin team, and you know it’s just a ploy to get you talking about anything but last night.

You won’t take the bait.  You don’t even deign to refute that Ravenclaw will be able to bridge the points gap to clinch the cup – obviously those tossers won’t steal the cup from you – that is utterly unimportant in comparison to what happened.

“ _Albus_ ,” you say flatly, firmly, just to get him to shut up.  “Is everything alright?” you ask, not with gentle concern, but with pointed belligerence because your brother is so bloody stoic sometimes.

He heaves a deep long sigh and finally concedes, “I don’t even fucking know what to make of this.”

You’ve never minced words.  “Do you still want to be my brother?”  Your question is edged as sharply as the last.

“As if I have a choice,” he huffs.

“Oh don’t you fucking even pull that on me,” you mutter bitterly.  “Lily is your half sister as much as I am your half brother. And clearly, you chose to be my brother, and not hers.”

“She made that choice,” Albus is quick to point out.  “But, whatever. I’m still your brother, whether you fucking like it, or not.”  He says it with more spite than you’d like.

“And if I don’t?  What then?” you ask.

“Then you can choose to disown me,” he replies, his voice cracking slightly.  You are clearly upsetting him, and it was not your intention.

You soften your approach.  Albus is the type of person that explodes with emotion if he’s made to suppress it for too long.  You don’t want to push him to that point. “That’s not what I meant… I mean… what if we choose to ignore the brother part and instead embrace the half part?”

“Why?” he snaps, “So you can feel less guilty about using me to get off with your girlfriend?”

Albus was always too damn astute for his own good.

“So I can bloody _live_ with myself,” you breathe out, revealing your shame, “So I can maybe stop feeling like such a sick pervert for _wanting_.”

“Wanting _what_?” Albus demands harshly.  He’s so deeply in denial that you just want to shake him to wake him up.

You answer him without words.

You answer him with a kiss.

It doesn’t feel wrong the way it should.  Albus doesn’t recoil. His mouth feels like home.

With your lips and words so hot against his mouth, you finally admit to him and to yourself, “I don’t want to feel anything, do anything, touch anybody, fuck anybody… without you, Albie.  You’re not my half brother. You are the other half of myself.”

He fits himself against you, over you, showing you just how perfectly you go together as two halves of one heart.  Yet he still struggles with his desire, never fully kissing you the way you want him to, laying tantalizingly on top of you without moving against you.  

His struggle brings him to quiet tears – this is the emotional Albus that you know, coming to the surface.

He whimpers softly, his lips still ghosting yours, “I don’t want to hurt him….,” all the while struggling to not kiss you, but unable to deny you every time you take his lips.

“Hurt who?”  For a moment, you think he’s talking about dad.

“Scorpius.”

Oh, right… his boyfriend.  You almost forgot about the Malfoy kid.  That little blond shit really has a way of sucking the fun right out of everything.

“You don’t owe him shit,” you tell him, feeling that possessive monster take over, “You were mine and I was yours long before he met you.”

“I don’t want to be like dad.  I don’t want to be the sort of arsehole that would cheat on somebody.  You have to see this from my perspective,” he insists tearfully.

“If Malfoy loves you, he’ll share.  You were mine first. If you need me to convince him of this, I will.  You know I can.”

Albus actually chuckles, still a bit weepy. “You are such a brat.”  

He kisses you properly this time.  You taste the brine of his tears. You feel his smile melting into your mouth, his tongue sliding inside, his hips moving subtly against yours.  You want to feel him closer - even closer than this. You want his skin and his heat and his sweat.

“Take this off,” you urge him gently, tugging up the hem of the old tee shirt he likes to wear to bed.

He sits up to pull the shirt over his head, and you look at him - really look at him.  He’s still such a scrawny git, but you love him the way he is – familiar in all his lanky lines and sharp edges.  

While he’s sitting on top of you, he grinds his hips, just so, and it makes you twitch in your pajamas.  You take him by the waist to encourage his hips further.

He knows just what he does to you, and he smirks above you.  Ever the cunning Slytherin, he says, “You can’t have me unless Catie knows too.”

“She’s not my girlfriend. Catie can fuck off,” you scoff.

“But you look so hot fucking her,” he admits, pouting so prettily, green eyes ravaging you behind a fan of thick, black lashes as he slowly pushes your shirt up to bear your gently heaving chest.

You roll your eyes, as if it pains you to allow Albus his own voyeuristic kink to match your exhibitionist kink.  Really, it’s further proof that you and he are perfect together. “Fine. I’ll keep fucking her if I must.”

Besides, it isn’t like you don’t enjoy fucking her…

“Other than Scor and Catie, this is a secret, yeah?” he says, further wrapping you around his finger as he winds his hips slowly, pressing his bottom into your growing need.

“We know how to keep a secret…”


	10. Albus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mention of rape and sexual abuse.

You have always thought of yourself as an intelligent, rational, reasonable person. But apparently, you’re stupid. You’re naïve and your handle on reality is loose at best.

Scorpius was never going to just nod and smile and accept all of your baggage, even if he’s done it up to this point. This sort of baggage was just too much to handle.

You had been luxuriating in a blissful monogamous relationship with him for months when you decided to drop a James-shaped bomb on Scorpius and expect him to go along with it.

The way you inadvertently framed it makes it seem like what happened between you and James over Easter holidays was not consensual. Scorpius flips his shit and threatens to pummel James to a pulp. He beseeches you to report James to the authorities.

“You don’t understand. It’s not like that. I let him kiss me,” you try to explain.

He continues to rationalize it because this is so far outside his moral framework. “Oh my gods, that bastard fucking poisoned you,” he laments, nearly in a panic. “He made you think it was okay. He thinks he’s entitled to do what he wants with you, for whatever sick reason, but he’s not, Al. He’s your brother, and he’s not allowed to touch you or kiss you or wank in front of you or force you to watch him fuck his girlfriend.”

When you hear it verbalized back at you, you realize just how bad it sounds. But somehow, you still don’t feel bad. You should be ashamed. You should feel disgusted. But you’re not. Because you love James.

“He loves me,” you insist. You don’t want to say it the other way around because you know it’ll break Scorpius’ heart.

“ _I_ love you, Albus. I love you enough to tell you what you don’t want to hear. Maybe he didn’t put himself inside you, but it’s still _rape_. You were sexually abused by your brother, and you are compensating for that pain by making yourself believe he loves you. If he really loved you, he’d keep his dirty hands off you.”

 

You’re crying now. You don’t know what to think. Maybe you really are delusional. Maybe James really did violate you.

You hadn’t consented when he hid under the Invisibility Cloak to watch you wank off. You hadn’t consented when he jerked off in your presence. You can’t use James’ love to justify his actions in those instances. You hadn’t consented, yet you enjoyed it, and you don’t know what that means.

But what happened at Easter – there was no grey area. There wasn’t ambiguous consent. You wanted it.

You want it still. You go to bed at night in the Slytherin dorms feeling like something is missing, even when Scorpius slides under the covers with you. You glimpse James from across the Great Hall and your heart does a little flip in your chest – he’s so cool and so beautiful and so bloody glorious. He passes you in the corridors, flashes his devilish blue eyes at you, and subtly bites his bottom lip, because he knows it makes you fucking _melt_.

His voice is always in your head, reminding you whom you belong to _. “I don’t want to feel anything, do anything, touch anybody, fuck anybody… without you, Albie.  You’re not my half brother. You are the other half of myself.”_

 

Scorpius is never going to understand this the way you’re explaining it. He needs to see it for himself.

Somehow, you convince Scorpius to come with you to meet James in the empty Quidditch changing rooms. Sneaking out of the castle at night has never been a problem for any of you. 

While you’re waiting for James to arrive, you take Scorpius’ hand and you tell him softly, “I love you. Never forget that.”

“I love you too,” he whispers, as he gently pulls you into an embrace. “I won’t ever let anyone hurt you.”

Because it is rare that you and Scorpius are alone together, so far from the busy castle, you find each other’s lips and escalate quickly to a deep, wet kiss.

His fingers are in your hair, and it sends a rush of warmth down the back of your neck.

Another set of hands is on you, unseen, sliding underneath the back of your jumper. You don’t even flinch. You now know that James is there behind you, hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak.

You also know that James loves this – watching without being seen – as much of a voyeur as he is an exhibitionist. So you keep him hidden for a while longer, languishing in his invisible heat, melting beneath his invisible touch, feeling his unseen eyes burning desirously as he watches you kiss Scorpius.

You can’t let it go too long, especially now that you know how important consent is to Scorpius.

“Forgive me, Scorpius,” you whisper, warm and desperate against his mouth. “I love him too.”

James seems to know what you’re thinking. The moment you turn around, he lets the Invisibility Cloak fall to the floor.

He’s already near enough to kiss. He pulls you even closer by the hips, starkly possessive in comparison to the way Scorpius holds you. Your hand finds the back of James’ neck, your need for him in conflict with your regard for Scorpius’ feelings. James’ eyes are the tempestuous blue of the sea, and his gaze makes you feel owned.

He kisses you, and it feels slightly wrong - just wrong enough to make it hot as fuck. But it only feels wrong because there’s a witness, yet it is not wrong enough to make you stop. James’ mouth is as familiar to you as your own lips, and kissing him is as natural and as wicked as masturbation.

You turn in James’ arms, which stay locked around your waist. You find Scorpius staring at you with a look that is both outraged and heartbroken.

“He’s such a good kisser, isn’t he,” James remarks, sounding smug.

Part of you wants to elbow him in the stomach for flaunting his dominion over you just to annoy Scorpius – annoying Scorpius had always been a favorite pastime of James’. The other part of you wants to blush hard and kiss James harder. 

“I don’t know what sort of spell you’re under, Albus,” Scorpius mutters, repulsed, “or what kind of potion that’s influencing you, but it’s dark. It’s dark magic and it’s sick and it’s wrong. And James needs to be locked up for doing this to you.”

“So dramatic,” James scoffs. He pulls his wand from his back pocket, and Scorpius is quick to draw his. “Relax, Malfoy. I was just going to prove to you that this isn’t dark magic. It is the magic of our blood.” James folds his arm across your chest and kisses your cheek, whispering, “The blood of our father runs through our veins. His mother isn’t mine, but she shaped him and breathed life into him, and gave him to me. His love is a gift. You would be stupid to refuse it.”

 _Oh my GODS._ His poetry makes you weak, makes you shiver, makes you feel loved beyond anything you’ve ever felt before. You shudder as you exhale, eyes closed, reveling in the softness of his lips on your cheek.

“ _Finite incantatum…,”_ James whispers, ending any would be spell.

You turn your face and strain your neck to reach for the kiss that he takes wetly from your lips.

“Feed him a bezoar and you’ll see… Albus will always love me,” he says sweetly, nuzzling his face against the side of your neck.

“This is so fucked up, I can’t even…,” Scorpius mutters, stunned, before turning away. He’s sobbing as he leaves the changing room.

You move to chase after him, but James holds you back. “Give him space. It’s a lot. But he’ll come around.”

 

But Scorpius doesn’t come around.

He avoids you and gives you the silent treatment for a solid twenty-four hours before telling you in a frustrated huff, “I just can’t.” He speaks through a mirthless, breathy laugh. “I actually considered it like a mad fool for a hot second because I fucking love you.” Then he shakes his head vehemently. “But, no. I won’t be a part of this. It is so beyond fucked. And I know I can’t bloody compete with James Fucking Potter, the most winning-est winner in Gryffindor history. So I won’t.  I concede that we’re done.”

“But, Scor…” you lament, your voice cracking as it rises an octave in your distress. You open and close your mouth several times, unable to find any words that might convince him. So you settle on the only words you have. “I love you.”

“I wish you wouldn’t. It makes what you’re doing to me hurt even more,” Scorpius bemoans, voice hoarse with the pain of his broken heart.


	11. James

You hadn’t expected Scorpius to give up so easily, considering the Malfoy entitlement that went along with his Slytherin ambition.  So it doesn’t surprise you when he catches your arm in the corridor and whispers menacingly behind your ear.

“Meet me alone under the quidditch stands at half past eight tonight, or I will tell the whole school that you’re an incestuous pillow biter.”

You snatch your wrist out of his grasp and turn to raise your brow at him skeptically.  If he really wanted to tell the whole school, why didn’t he do it a week ago?  But you won’t call his bluff. Maybe Scorpius has had a change of heart in favor of being a vindictive arsehole.

Scorpius doesn’t bother whispering his next words. “If you truly _love_ your brother, you’ll meet me.”  The way he says _love,_ it is incriminating and spiteful enough to indicate he’s serious about outing you. “And you won’t tell Al you’re meeting me.”

  

Maybe Malfoy won’t tell the school about your special relationship with your brother – maybe he’ll spare hurting Albus.  But you wouldn’t put it past the prat to have you jumped. Well before your rendezvous time, you show up on the pitch after dinner, to search the area while hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak. 

You’ve already cleared the quidditch stands and the perimeter when Scorpius arrives alone, without a posse of Slytherins to beat you up.  He still might want to take you on, one-on-one. 

That’s a fight you wouldn’t mind engaging in.  You’d win, but Albus would get upset that you smashed his ex boyfriend’s pretty face. If Malfoy managed to get in a good shot, Albus would still get upset.  Al doesn’t like to see you hurt.  A showdown with Scorpius would be a lose-lose situation all around, except for the possible satisfaction of punching the little blond shit in his lovely mouth.

You must look like you’re itching for a fight, because Scorpius tucks his wand behind his ear and displays his palms.  “I’m not here to throw down with you, James.  I’ve already conceded that I’ve lost Albus.”

You shrug coolly, “Actually, he was never truly yours to begin with, but thanks. I’ll keep him.”

Scorpius puts his hands down and rounds on you threateningly.  “You’re lucky I haven’t told anyone yet, you smug son-of-a-bitch.”

You stand your ground, seemingly unaffected, but you inwardly begin to worry about losing Albus if the truth gets out.  “My guess is you haven’t told because you’re still holding onto hope.  If you betrayed Al’s trust, you’d have no chance of ever getting back together with him.”

“This isn’t a competition for Albus’ heart,” Scorpius snaps, “I _know_ he still loves me.”  He takes a breath to collect himself and smoothes down his hair. “When I saw you two together, I saw how much he loves you.  I saw how you possess him so completely. You know him in ways I never will because you’ve known him since birth.  I can’t compete with that.  The thing is, I love him, and I don’t think I can ever stop. I can’t see _you_ ever letting him go.  And I don’t trust that you won’t hurt him.  So this is what we’re going to do.”

Scorpius unbuttons his shirtsleeve and rolls up the fabric to reveal his wrist.  He’s wearing garishly colorful bracelets and you can’t help but snort at his gaudy accessories.  He shoots a deadly glare and mutters, “Shut up.”

You smirk. “I didn’t say anything.” 

“But you thought it.  You thought what every homophobic arsehole has already said to me when I was a little kid. Yeah, I know that showy bracelets aren’t something most boys wear.  I’m gay as fuck and I’ve stopped giving a shit what people think, but that’s not why I’m wearing these bracelets.  You’re going to wear one too.”

You clutch your heart and coo mockingly, “Matching friendship bracelets?  Awh, I’m touched.”

He reaches for your wrist and you quickly avoid his grasp. 

“They’re enchanted bracelets.  If you don’t wear one and make Albus wear one too, I will not only tell the school that you like to shove your tongue down your brother’s throat, I will also tell your parents that you force him to watch you wank off.”

You ignore everything he just said other than the last bit. “Oh, but he _loves_ watching me stroke my dick.”

Your words make Scorpius visibly cringe, but you won’t let him make you feel dirty for what you’ve done.  Albus loves you.  He wants you. He chose you.

“Maybe that’s true sometimes, but I don’t trust you,” Scorpius says, narrowing his eyes at you. “You’re the same arsehole that knocked Albus off his broom the day before quidditch tryouts so that he was too injured to play.  You didn’t want to have to compete against your own brother, so you made sure he’d never make the team.  Even though it was Al’s decision to give up quidditch, you steered him that way. You’ve been manipulating him for as long as I’ve known him, but I was too blind to see it before.  Now that I know how coercive and creepy you can be, I’m not going to let you do it to him anymore.”

“And you think that if we’re enchanted besties, I’ll do your bidding?” you guess, eyeing the bracelets skeptically.

Scorpius clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes. “I told you, they’re not friendship bracelets. They’re enchanted alert bracelets,” Scorpius explains, “You see, my parents went through an ugly divorce when I was three.  They each wanted sole custody of me because neither one trusted the other to keep me safe. The court granted them joint custody on the condition that I wear a sensor bracelet, so each parent could be alerted if the other was letting me come to harm or forcing me to stay against my will. 

It worked out great, not that either of my parents had any inclination of harming me, or making me stay with them when I didn’t want to.  But it helped them learn to trust each other.  It only stopped being a good system when I went to Hogwarts. Of course, harm would come to me – it’s school, and shit happens.  It started to get really embarrassing when my parents would show up every few weeks because my clumsy arse did something silly that required a plaster, or if I was in Ancient Runes class for longer than I liked.

So mum and dad agreed that we could stop wearing the bracelets.  But I still keep them in my trunk because, well…” he glances down at the bracelets with a forlorn sigh and he fingers them reverently, “It reminds me of how much my parents love me – how _uncompromising_ they are in their love for me.”

You know all about uncompromising love and the lengths to which one will go because of it. 

Scorpius removes one of the bracelets from his wrist, a tiny polished white periwinkle shell strung through with a bright red cord.  “Give this to Albus. I know you won’t have a problem making him wear it at all times. Not only because you’re a bossy bitch, but because I’ll know if he doesn’t wear it once it’s activated.”  He points at the shell charms on the remaining bracelets on his wrist. “These become hot if Albus takes off his bracelet, if he’s hurt, or if he’s forced to stay against his will.  If I’m alerted for any reason, I will hunt you down and I will tell everyone what you’re doing.”

He takes off the bracelet with the bright blue cord and hands it to you.  “You’re going to wear one too, so you can make sure he’s safe, even if he isn’t with you.”

“Doesn’t Albus know they’re yours?” you ask as you slip the bracelet onto your wrist and tighten the cord.

“It’s one of the few things he doesn’t know about me,” he admits. “You get to take all the credit for this one.  I’m sure you’ll love that.”


	12. Albus

You roll the little shell around its red cord, unable to keep from smiling.  You think nothing could make you feel more loved.

  

“I’m never going to let anyone hurt you,” James had said, as he slipped the sensor bracelet onto your wrist and showed you its match adorning his own wrist.

Scorpius had once told you the same thing, not long ago.  But James… James _meant_ it.  James made _sure_ of it.  The magic he weaved through the bracelet felt as strong as James’ love for you.

 

You feel a pair of eyes watching you from down the Slytherin table and know to whom they belong. You pull down your shirtsleeve to hide the bracelet, wishing you didn’t have to feel so guilty for finding happiness in something so small. 

Your smile leaves when you turn slightly to find Scorpius pretending, very poorly, that he wasn’t looking at you.  He busies himself with his breakfast and won’t meet your eyes, no matter how long you stare. 

Scorpius is never going to look at you the way you want him to.  He’ll always look at you with silver blue eyes that mourn what you once had, and what could have been.

You give up watching Scorpius in favor of watching James.  Everything has changed, and yet nothing has.  He’s still holding court at the Gryffindor table with his arm slung around Catie’s shoulders. 

You abandon your breakfast and cross into enemy territory.  James’ mates are laughing hysterically at something he’s just said, and a part of you wonders if they’re laughing at _you,_ because James’ eyes won’t meet yours. 

You frown deeply as you approach.  He still won’t look directly at you until you’re right up in his face.  Then he decides to acknowledge your presence with a casual _hey_.  Not even a fond _hey little shit_.  He doesn’t even have the decency to dislodge himself from Catie.

“I need to talk to you.  Privately,” you tell him.

He rolls his eyes, heaves a long sigh, and peels himself off Catie.  “Be right back, babe. A big brother’s job is never done.” 

James hasn’t been this annoyed with you since you were a first year, and though he’s never been particularly cordial with you in front of his friends, it still stings.

 

You find privacy behind the old greenhouses.

“I gave up Scorpius for you.  And you…” The words get stuck in your throat. You hadn’t realized how hurt you were until you start crying.

James rushes to comfort you.  He takes your face in his hands and whispers, “Albie… Don’t cry.”  He gently kisses your tears away and his soft lips on your wet cheek make your heart ache.  How can he be so cruel in one breath and so loving in the next?

“You have to tell Catie about us,” you say, trying hard not to kiss him back.  But his lips feel so good when they reach your mouth.  You haven’t kissed James in over a week and you’re just now realizing how hungry you’ve been for him.

“She’s not even my girlfriend.  I don’t have to tell her anything.  She’s never going to understand us. I’m _done_ with her, okay?  Done.” James’ eyes plead with you, but it’s not enough to make you feel better. He peppers your lips with small kisses between words.  “Come on, Albie, don’t cry… Catie means nothing to me… I’m done with her… starting now.”

You cry harder, your words shuddering as your voice rasps, “It’s not fair.  You shouldn’t have it so easy.  Not when I had to lose a fucking limb.”

James gently envelops you in an embrace like the fragile thing that you are, and he presses a kiss to your forehead.  “You’re all I want.  Don’t you understand?  You haven’t lost anything.  You have _me_.  You’re my other half, and I’m yours.”

You fall apart in James’ arms – the arms in which you’ve always felt safe.  “I don’t know how to _be_ without him, Jamie,” you sob, “He was my best friend.”

“You don’t need him anymore.  I’m going to be your everything,” James insists, gently ruffling your hair when you rest your head on his chest and continue to cry.

“But you can’t. You can’t be everything I need. You can’t even be nice to me in public,” you say, sounding more whiny and childish than you had intended.

“I’ll be nicer to you in public, I promise,” he assures you, “And in private, I’m going to be everything you need.”  He pulls back slightly and you lift your head so that your eyes meet.  “I’m going to be everything you _want_.”

The next time he kisses you, it is no longer in an effort to pacify your tears.  His mouth closes wetly over yours, slowly and purposefully, tasting your lips, maybe even relishing the brine of your tears.  “I love you, Albie,” he whispers, “I’m your everything. And you’re mine.  Nobody else matters except us.”

You crumble beneath his kiss, under the weight of his love.  His soft tongue slides past your teeth and seeks out your own.  Kissing James this way still feels deliciously wicked enough to make you twitch in your pants.  His body is pressed against you as he kisses you feverishly, breathing hard into your open mouth.

You kiss him back with desperation that surpasses his own because there’s still a gaping void inside you that hurts as if you’d been splinched.  Only James can ease this pain.

James’ palm finds the shape of your growing erection through your clothes and your breath hitches. He’s never touched you like this. You’ve rut against each other in nothing but pyjama bottoms, but this is something else entirely.  It’s somehow more intimate than pressing your hard-on against his thigh.

He hesitates, but only for a moment, as if he’s waiting for you to make him stop.  When you don’t protest, he begins to stroke you through your trousers.  You whine softly, unintelligible words of bliss and anxious need.  The friction is not nearly enough.  Your fingers fumble with the closures of your trousers and you open them to reveal that your underpants are wet with pre-come.

His mouth is at your ear, whispering a deep and seductive command that you could not refuse even if you wanted to.  “Show me. Show me how much you want me.” Then he pulls away from you abruptly enough to make you flinch, and takes a few steps back. 

He’s watching you with hungry eyes, and you know, without a doubt, that nobody has ever looked at you this way – not even Scorpius.  The ocean tempest roiling in James’ blue eyes is a storm in his heart – a storm that has been building for you, and you alone.

He makes you feel vulnerable and desired and cherished, with nothing but his eyes on you.

You lean back on the glass of the greenhouse.  It’s one of the old buildings that are only used for storage these days, so you know you’re relatively safe here – safe to expose yourself to James, knowingly and intentionally.  He’s not hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak this time.  And unlike the last time, there is no hiding the way that the sight of you affects James.

You watch the way his tongue subtly wets his bottom lip when you wrench your dick free from the confines of your trousers.  You watch that same lip get caught between his teeth when you slowly tug on your waking arousal, sliding the foreskin over the reddened head.  You watch his chest heaving as you reach a more purposeful rhythm and quickly bring yourself to full hardness.  

You already know how much James loves watching you.  You are only mildly surprised how much you love being watched.  You move deliberately, each unhurried stroke and slow twist are performed for his enjoyment. 

But he’s not content to simply watch from afar.  He falls reverently to his knees before you and gazes up at you with worshipful eyes.  This is a side of James you’ve never seen – a boy completely at your mercy.

Your fingers pause at the end of a downward slide, holding your cock by the base, offering yourself to him.  He glances down at your leaking erection, then back up at you.  His blue eyes are unsure.  You worry for a moment that you’re asking for too much.  But then he slowly inches forward, his tongue flattens against the side of your cock, his mouth closes over the head, and all the while his eyes have not left yours.

“ _Fuck, Jamie.”_   Your words are whispered on a shuddering exhalation. 

His eyes flutter closed.  He takes you down as far as he can go, and when you move your hand from the base of your cock to brush back the fringe of his hair, he takes you all the way down to the hilt. You jealously wonder how James became so adept at deep-throating.

Your jealousy is short-lived, for the heat of James’ wet mouth envelops you completely and your eyes roll to the back of your head in abject ecstasy.  James makes you feel like your cock is the only cock that matters to him, other than his own.  You’re not surprised to find that his hand is jammed down the open front of his trousers, reaching for his dick.

It’s your first blowjob.  You were never going to last, let alone outlast James.  He’s making these wet, vulgar, rapturous sounds around your cock and he’s so fucking _into it_ that you feel sorry for ending things abruptly.

“Oh gods, I’m gonna come.”  Your eyes flash open when you feel that your release is imminent. 

But the first thing you see when you open your eyes isn’t James on his knees.  You’re drawn to a figure peeking out from behind a tree in the distance.  You see a flash of blond hair before the figure hides itself.  Right now, you can’t be arsed to care who it is, because you’re coming, hard and hot down your brother’s throat.

The rush of ecstasy surges through you, quickly followed by a wave of shame crashing over you. With each gasp and sharp exhale and fervent spurt, you feel equal parts bliss and horror. Because there’s no turning back from this.  James isn’t your brother anymore.  He can’t be. He’s tasted your cock.  He’s tasted your come.  He fucking _swallowed,_ and you want to be revolted but you’ve never felt so in love.

And to complicate things further… there was a witness.

Scorpius saw you.

And you don’t feel as sorry about that as you should.


	13. James

You can make Albus cry as easily as you can make him come.  This is going to be a problem.

As soon as you get up off your knees and charm yourself clean, you know you have to find Scorpius.  You are still light-headed from orgasm, still reeling from the bitter sweet taste of your brother’s seed lingering on your tongue, your skin still prickling with delight and warm with love, when you zip up your trousers and peck Albus on the lips.

“Gotta go,” you say.

He’s still breathless, his back slumped against the glass house, cheeks ruddy, dark hair clinging to his forehead with sweat.  He looks wrecked and you think you’ve never seen him look more beautiful.  But his eyebrows knit together with sadness.

“James,” he huffs out.  “You’re just gonna leave me?”

You’re already retreating backwards when you tell him, “There’s something I’ve got to do. I promise I won’t be such a wanker next time.”

“The _fuck,_ Jamie?” he whimpers.

You stop your hasty departure and curse yourself for falling prey to Albus’ pitiful whine. That wounded little voice tugs on your heart every time.

But Scorpius could have told somebody by now.  You felt the heat of the enchanted bracelet on your wrist when Albus started crying. You should have left the moment that the bracelet responded to Albus’ pain.  But your brother needed you.  And you needed to know what his dick tasted like.

Albus still needs you.  You run back and kiss him properly.  It might be your last.  You should make it a good one. 

“I love you,” you tell him, pressing your foreheads together.

He rests his hand over your chest and says, “I love you too.” 

Your heart does a somersault inside your chest.  You can’t keep the stupid grin off your face.  “You’re just saying that because I sucked you off,” you tease him.

Albus giggles and gives your earlobe a little nip before murmuring, “Nah… I’m saying it because you _swallowed_.”

You both chuckle and he finally lets you go.  “Will I see you later?” he asks.

“Not unless I see you first.”  With a wink, you’re off running. 

 

You luckily find Malfoy as soon as you enter the castle, dashing down the corridor.  You call out to him, “Malfoy! I can explain!”

He stops running, but doesn’t bother to turn around to face you.  He merely turns his head to the side and asks, breathless and annoyed, “I’m late for Charms. Explain _what_?”

When you don’t answer immediately, he continues on to class, leaving you perplexed.

Maybe Malfoy’s bracelet is defective.  Maybe he’s already reported you.  Maybe he really is bluffing.  You spend the whole damn school day waiting for something to happen, unable to concentrate on lessons. 

Perhaps you should feel guilty for making Albus jealous on purpose, but the only thing you’re sorry for is making him cry.  You got cozy with Catie simply to steal Albus’ attention away.  You couldn’t stand watching him from across the Great Hall, pining away for his ex-boyfriend. 

Maybe more than making Albus cry, you should feel ashamed for what you did to him afterwards. But you don’t.  It felt brilliant. 

Albus was not the first person you’ve made come, but he was by far the best, probably because he’s the only person you’ve ever loved, and nothing compares to making the person you love come undone. 

When you’re not worrying about Malfoy snitching on you, you’re daydreaming about your brother’s beautiful, thick cock sliding down your throat.  You’re remembering the carnal smell of his sweat emanating from the tuft of black curls, or the way his come tasted remarkably like yours, or the pretty way he moaned when you tightened your lips and hollowed your cheeks. 

 

Truthfully, you’re not sorry about any of it.  All you care about is not getting caught.

It turns out to be an ordinary, boring day at Hogwarts.  Nobody bursts into any of your classrooms, ready to haul you into the Headmaster’s office for questioning, or worse, into the DMLE of the Ministry.  However, you do serve detention at lunchtime for being late to your first class of the day. 

And because you missed lunch, you don’t see Albus until dinner.  You catch his eye as he sits down at the Slytherin table.  He gives you a weak smile from afar and that sad little grin makes you want to ravish him again, just to prove that he’s loved.

“Saw you first!” you shout.  He rolls his eyes, amused.

Catie sits down next to you and you give her the cold shoulder.  “I’d rather not do this anymore,” you tell her with a bored sigh.

“What the fuck, Jamie?” she says, affronted by your sudden lack of affection for her.

“Don’t make a scene, Catie,” you admonish her, “You know I’m not one for relationships.”

She gives you a disgusted scoff and moves to sit next to Sebastian. Sebastian couldn’t be fucked to care that Catie is only being sweet on him to make you jealous.  Sebastian has fancied Catie long before you started messing around with her.  You’re inwardly offended that it had been so easy to be rid of her.  What does that say about you?

You don’t mean to brood, because Catie really was just a passing amusement.  Albus notices your mood and comes over to sit and eat dinner with you.  You don’t have to talk.  It has always been this way between you.  You both knew when the other needed closeness over words.

“Hey, let’s get out of here,” Albus says before pudding is served. 

You hazard a glance back at the Slytherin table as you leave the Great Hall and find Scorpius watching you.  You can’t read his expression, and that worries you.  Malfoy always wore his emotions on his sleeve, just like Albus. You wonder what Scorpius is keeping inside.  More than that, you wonder _why_ he’s keeping it.

  

Inside the quidditch changing room is where you can finally be alone with Albus after a long, stressful day.  He wraps his arms around you and buries his face into the side of your neck.  He heaves a drawn out exhale and his breath feels soothing and warm against your skin.  You breathe in the familiar scent of his hair.  He smells like he’s yours.  He has _always_ been yours.

“I was afraid you weren’t going to do it,” Albus says.

“Suck your dick?” you joke, just because you can’t help it.

“No, you dork,” Albus snorts. “Tell off Catie.  Be nice to me in public.”

“I’d never go back on a promise to you, Albie,” you tell him gently, not offended by his lack of faith in you.  You know his trust is always hard won and you will never take that for granted.

“Are you alright?” he asks you, rubbing your back comfortingly.

“I’m fine. I’m over it.  My ego hurt more than anything, really,” you admit.

You stay just like this for a long time, holding each other in silence, finding consolation for your bruised pride in the loving arms of your brother – the one person who knows you beneath the arrogance and flippancy.

Albus sits on the long changing bench and reaches for your hands.  He takes them both and looks up at you worriedly.  “Are we going to be alright?”

You glance away, searching for an answer that’s not within your reach.  You gaze down at him and squeeze his hands gently. “Yeah.  We’ll be alright.  As long as we keep this just between us, we’ll be okay.”

“But that’s the thing, Jamie… It’s not exactly just between us,” Albus reminds you.

“Don’t worry about Malfoy.  He’s not going to tell,” you assure him, even though you’re not very confident about it.

“Why?  That’s the thing I don’t understand.  Why hasn’t he told anyone?” Albus asks, more as an open question than anything.

“Because he loves you,” you mutter, perhaps bitterly.

“I think he saw us, James… by the old greenhouses,” Albus says quietly. 

You’re startled by this fact at first, but then it explains why Malfoy hadn’t acknowledged that the bracelet was activated.  You didn’t need to explain to Malfoy why Albus was feeling hurt.  He heard.  He saw you smooth things over… and then some. 

“Well, then what’s to worry about?” you say dismissively, “He hasn’t told anyone.  He had the opportunity all day, and he didn’t.”

“Why not?” Albus asks again, exasperated.

“Maybe he _likes_ watching us…”


	14. Scorpius

Albus and James seriously have a lot of balls. 

You’ve been watching them for a while now, and you’ve seen how brazen they’ve become.  Because you have a unique insight into their relationship, you know that those subtle public exchanges are much more than brotherly love: A grin that’s too knowing to be cheeky, a glance that lingers too long to be innocent, hands brushing in the corridors too often to be accidental, one of them skipping out of the Great Hall too soon after the other for it to be a coincidental disinterest in pudding.

You still have to wonder if this thing between the Potter brothers is one-sided.  You actually _want_ James to hurt Albus so that you have an excuse to break them apart.  So you follow them one night when they leave dinner early.

As soon as you catch up with them, the shell on your bracelet starts to heat up.  You quickly hide behind a nearby tree.  Albus and James however, do nothing to hide themselves, short of ducking behind the abandoned greenhouse.  They are _that_ complacent, or perhaps that plain stupid, that they don’t even bother going inside for more privacy.

You are close enough that you can hear why Albus is hurting.  It breaks your heart all over again to discover that _you_ are the one hurting him.  Albus says that losing you was akin to losing a limb.  Hearing that, you _know_ you are fucked forever.  You will never get over Albus Potter.  But James Potter is going to make damn sure that Albus gets over you.

The moment they start snogging, you think you should leave.  But you’re still worried that James is going to force Albus to do something against his will, and you don’t want to wait for the enchanted bracelet to tell you.  So you force yourself to watch James kiss the boy you love, and you find yourself unable to look away.

The way Albus meltsfrom James’ kiss makes you seethe with jealousy.  You thought you were special, and that nobody else but you could set Albus alight.  But you watch as Albus catches fire quickly. His flame soon burns white hot and you envy James’ prowess.

By the time Albus has his dick out and James is on his knees, you are biting your tongue, fighting back a scream, swallowing your rage.  You’ve never gotten far enough in your relationship with Albus to reach this point, and you are fucking furious that James gets to have the first taste of Albus’ cock.

Part of you wants to punch James in his smug mouth right now.  But another part of you, the part between your legs, wants to watch Albus punish that smart mouth with his prick.  You want Albus to fuck his face and shut him up good and proper. 

But that’s not Albus.  Albus is gentle and kind and so bloody thoughtful, even when he’s getting his dick sucked.  He is courteous enough to give James a verbal warning before shooting his load.  And _damn_ if Albus doesn’t look like a fallen angel when he comes!  He falls apart with tragic grace and you could just cry – you’ve wanted him like this for so long.  It should be _you_ making him whimper, making his breath stutter, making him spurt down your throat.

And James… bloody _James._ The Gryffindor wanker is so unabashedly enraptured, so fucking _enthralled_ with a dick in his mouth, you wonder if the bored and aloof way he always carries himself is completely fabricated.  James shoots his load immediately after his brother does and his unfettered growl makes your cock twitch. _Fuck_ … What is  _that_ about?

You are so lost in their bliss that Albus nearly catches you watching.  At least, you _think_ Albus didn’t see you before you pulled your head back behind the tree.  He doesn’t say anything, so you assume you’re safe. 

James does the expected thing and starts to leave even before Albus can put his dick back in his pants.  _Shit!_ He’ll see you for sure.  You should have left while they were distracted. 

Luckily, Albus calls James back.  You don’t bother to watch them snogging again, even though a sick part of you kind of _wants_ to.  You make a run for it, and rush back to the castle.

  

“Malfoy!”

You’re already in the corridor when you hear James calling you from behind.  You freeze in your tracks.  You think you’ve definitely been caught.

But then he says he can explain.  Explain what?  _Oh… right… the bracelet._

You pretend it never happened.  None of it happened.  Not the bracelet responding to Albus’ tears, not the blowjob behind the greenhouse that you watched _raptly_.

 

But it _did_ happen, and you’ll never be able to scrub the image from your memory. You’ll wank to it instead, later that night, behind the curtains of your four-poster, in the bed next to Albus’.

You’ll think about the way Albus threw back his head in ecstasy and clenched his fingers in James’ hair.  You’ll think about the way James had looked on his knees – like the most vulnerable, submissive, perfect slut.  Instead of Albus’ cock, it will be _yours_ shoved to the back of James’ mouth.


	15. James

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains attempted(?) sexual assault and violence.

Scorpius is not exactly the stealthiest Slytherin snake when it comes to covertly spying on you and Albus.  Sometimes you catch a glimpse of him in the distance, jumping out of sight.  Sometimes you can just feel his eyes on you.  And sometimes, you just let the prat follow you, and you pretend to be none the wiser.

You don’t know what kind of fucked up game Malfoy has been playing with you over the past couple of months, but you think it has potential to be fun.  So you play along.  If Scorpius wants to watch, you’ll give him an eye-full.

 

One day, you find Scorpius on his way into the Great Hall for dinner.  You can’t bloody help yourself, and you whisper behind his ear, “I’ll save you the trouble of searching… Albus and I are going down to the pitch tonight.”

“Fuck if I care,” he says dismissively.

He pretends you hadn’t called him out on espionage and goes on his merry way.

  

The end of term is so close that you can taste it on the sweet June air.  You’re excited for what summer will bring you and Albus.  The heat of the night and the sparkle in Albus’ green eyes makes you feel reckless and in love.

It’s a pity that Scorpius hadn’t followed you to the quidditch pitch.  You were in the mood to show off tonight.  You might have to give Scorpius more of an incentive to come find you. 

You know it’s exactly the sort of thing that Malfoy has been waiting for you to do, when you shove Albus into the grass of the deserted pitch, pin his wrists down, and sit on him.

“ _James!_ ” Albus huffs, looking up at you, startled.

He tries to sit up, but you easily overpower him. He’s never been as athletic as you.

“What are you doing?” he whines, emerald eyes gleaming with betrayal.  You tighten your fingers around his wrists and he whimpers, “You’re hurting me, James.” 

“Wait for it,” you say melodically.  The shell on your bracelet begins to feel warm, but it’s slight.  Perhaps it’s not enough of a signal to pique Scorpius’ interest. 

“Wait for what?  Jamie, what do you want from me?” Albus pleads, “You know I’d give you anything; you just need to ask.”

“ _Godric_ , you’re too easy,” you scoff, admonishing Albus for being so submissive to you.  You lean close and whisper menacingly into his ear, “I’m going to have to _really_ hurt you now, Albus.”

You release one of his wrists, thrust your hand beneath the front of his un-tucked shirt, and twist his nipple, hard.  When you were little boys, giving Albus a _Purple Nipple_ at the beach was always your go-to retaliation when he would give you a _Wet Willie_.

But instead of shouting indignantly in pain like he should, Albus bloody _moans_. “ _Mmmfuuuuck_.”  You feel his hips subtly thrusting against you for friction.

You slump against him in defeat and groan with exasperation.  “You’re impossible.”  You sit up and sigh, “Forget it.  I’m sorry.”

He narrows his eyes at you quizzically, and then, realization dawns.  “Were you trying to test the bracelet?”

You nod apologetically, pouting slightly. 

Really, you were trying to summon Scorpius by hurting Albus.  But maybe you love Albus too much to ever truly hurt him.

Albus giggles.  “I appreciate it.  But my threshold for pain is much too high.”

“I see that… pervert,” you tease him.

He sits up and you shift a little on his lap so that he’s close enough to kiss.  You drag your tongue across his mouth and he groans softly.

“Somebody might see,” he mumbles.

 _Yeah, that’s the point._ You were hoping that Scorpius would see.  You keep on kissing Albus despite the risk of somebody other than Scorpius finding you on the darkened pitch.

“You should’ve brought the Invisibility Cloak,” Albus whispers, “We really shouldn’t be doing this out in the open like this.”

You smirk against his lips and drawl, “Thrilling, isn’t it?”

“Jamie, really.  We should stop,” he says seriously, turning icy to your kiss.

You push him down to the grass once again and you cover his mouth with one hand.  “Don’t be such a pussy, Al.”  You keep him pinned down with the weight of your body and single-handedly fumble with the closures of his trousers.

His protests are muffled behind your palm. His eyes are wide with alarm. He’s squirming beneath you, trying to wrestle you off.  You shouldn’t be enjoying this, but you’re apparently more of a sick fuck than you thought.  You don’t stop fighting against him until the shell of the alert bracelet is burning hotly enough to scald your wrist.

The pain startles you out of your power trip. You scramble off Albus, but it’s too late.  You took it too far, and you’ve betrayed his trust.  You see it in his eyes.  He’s siting in the grass, crying and holding his knees to his chest.

“Albus, I’m sorry,” you beseech him, “Please, don’t cry.  I shouldn’t have done that.  Forgive me.”

He slowly rises to his feet and zips up his trousers.  He looks shaken.  His posture is slumped.  He’s like a wounded animal and you want to throw your arms around him to make him feel safe, but you know that is the last thing that Albus wants from you.  You let him walk away because you’ve learned over the years when to give him space.

As Albus disappears over the hill, you wonder if you’ve truly lost him.  You hide under the quidditch stands and cry angrily, punching at the wooden planks, making your fist bleed.  You want it to hurt.  You deserve this pain - Albus did not.

 

You are in such despair that you don’t even fight back when Scorpius finds you there, whirls you around by the shoulder, and punches you in the face. 

“What did you do to him?” Scorpius snarls. 

You’re holding your nose tenderly, stunned by the impact, wondering if something’s broken. 

“I’ve never felt the shell get so hot before. What the fuck did you do?” he demands.

He moves to stand behind you.  You can feel the heat of his body, burning with rage, and the warmth of his breath.

When you don’t answer him, he kicks the back of your knee, sending you to the ground kneeling.  He comes to stand in front of you and tugs hard on your hair to make you look at him.

“You don’t fucking deserve him,” he cries, not in anger, but in anguish.  He’s nearly in tears.  “You don’t deserve him… and neither do I.” 

He opens his trousers and you’re shocked by the fact that Scorpius could even think to enact revenge upon you in this way, but you’re also surprised to find that you _want_ it.

Scorpius is neither composed nor subtle, in complete contrast to the way he normally handles himself in public.  He wrenches out his dick with one hand and firmly holds the top of your head with the other.

“Open your mouth,” he commands.  “I’m going to fuck your face.  If you bite me, I will knock out your teeth.”

The way Scorpius speaks to you, with such vitriol and disregard for you as a human, makes you weak in the knees and half-hard in your pants.  Nobody has ever dared to talk to you this way.  And maybe it’s your own guilt that’s making you feel like you deserve to be dehumanized, or maybe it’s your own sick need.  Because you like it.

When you open your mouth, you feel blood dripping from your nose onto your lips.  You know that Scorpius’ prick is going to be stained crimson, and something about that gives you a wicked thrill. 

His cock is pale pink, long, and elegantly slender – exactly how you would expect a Malfoy’s dick to be, and you inwardly remark what a lucky son-of-a-bitch your brother had been. 

But you will not take any pleasure in this. Scorpius makes sure of that.  He thrusts past your teeth, tilting your head back to make your mouth gape wider.  You’re unable to suppress your gag reflex like you normally do, and you choke when his cock reaches the back of your throat.  The wet, guttural sounds you make are utterly disgusting, but Scorpius seems to relish them.

Reflexively, every part of your face leaks as you gag on the intrusion – your eyes, your nose, your mouth.  You are a hot, dripping mess. 

But Scorpius gazes down on you with feral lust in his silver blue eyes and he says, “ _Merlin_.  You really are so fucking pretty with a dick in your mouth.”

It shouldn’t feel like praise, but it does. You blush all the way from your cheeks to your ears, and you grab the base of his cock to take control.

“Make me come,” he whispers, his voice becoming strangled with the tension of his building desire.  “Make me come the way you make Albus come.”

You weren’t supposed to enjoy this, but you can’t help it.  You’re an unabashed cock slut and you’re proud of how adept you are at giving head. Your jaw hurts like hell, but you take Scorpius with a swift, determined rhythm.

He warns you that he’s about to come by tightening his fist in your hair, making your scalp hurt.  Your lips are tight around him when he spasms on your tongue.  He tastes nothing like your brother.  He’s sour and salty, and the sensation of his spunk congealing on your tongue makes you want to vomit.  You try to pull off, but his hands keep you there.

“Swallow me,” Scorpius demands, still breathless from his release.

You remember your superior strength and pull his hands off your head.  You come off his dick and you spit on his spotlessly shined shoes, emptying your mouth of his bitter seed.  This earns you a slap on the cheek.  It stings sweetly.

“Bitch,” he hisses. 

You chuckle, low and deep and sinisterly, as you wipe the remnants of blood and saliva and semen from your mouth with your sleeve.

He quickly charms himself clean and shoves his softening prick back into his trousers.

As you get off your knees, you find your sass again.  “Next time, just ask.  Don’t make me summon you.”

He answers you only with an utterly disdainful glare and a superior sniff.

  

An entire day goes by, and Albus still won’t talk to you. He won’t even look at you.  You watch him from across the Great Hall at dinner, and he’s pining away for Scorpius again.  Scorpius ignores Albus’ longing stare, but it looks like it pains the blond git to do so. And you?  You don’t even exist to Scorpius right now.

Nobody is paying attention to you, at least nobody that matters, and it drives you mad.  You’re not used to this.

You remember how well it had worked when you had used Catie to get Albus’ attention.  But she has completely moved on to Sebastian.  They’re snogging on the other side of the Gryffindor table, making everyone sick.  You’ll have to use somebody else.

Why bother with a disposable pawn?  Why not put a Queen forward on the board to capture a knight?

You saunter over to the Slytherin table like you belong there, and you wedge yourself between Malfoy and some witch you can’t be arsed to know.

Scorpius heaves a disinterested sigh and glances away, not deigning to look at you when he asks, “What do you want, James?”

“I think you know,” you drawl suggestively.

He barely addresses you with a bored, “Fuck off.” 

“Would you rather I summon you like last time?” you ask, completely unashamed.

 _That_ got his attention.

“Shut up,” Scorpius hisses through his teeth, clandestinely gesturing towards Albus with his eyes.

Albus is watching you now and you back off. You don’t want to hurt him again. You only wanted to get his attention, and now you have it. 

“Nice talking to you, Malfoy, ta,” you say with forced cordialness. 

You greet your brother only in passing, the way you always do.  You ruffle his hair and chime fondly, “Alright, little shit.”

He doesn’t answer you with _Alright, big shit_ , like he normally would.  He frowns and promptly leaves the table.  You don’t follow him.  He’s still not ready to forgive you.

 

 


	16. Albus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: explicit incest, consensual  
> TW: victim blaming

James is the last person you thought would ever do this to you.  Yeah, he’s got a tendency to be heavy-handed with his love.  But what happened on the quidditch pitch was different.  You shudder to think about what he might have done to you, had the bracelet not forced him to stop.

You had told James that you’d give him anything he asked for, and he _still_ wanted to forcibly take it from you.  You can’t wrap your head around why he would feel the need to do that.  Testing the bracelet isn’t a good enough excuse.

You start to blame yourself.  Maybe James thinks you’re slipping away from him.  Maybe you’re not showing him you love him enough.  Maybe this was his way of reinforcing his ownership of your heart. But none of that matters anymore because you can’t go back to him.  He was the last person on earth you trusted, and he violated that trust.

You have lost the two people you love the most in the span of a few months.  You feel completely alone now.  Not only are you missing a limb, you’re missing half of yourself.  Now you’re just a fragment of a broken boy.

  

Sorrow finds you by the Black Lake a few days before the end of term.  You can’t be arsed to study for exams.  You’re throwing pebbles into the water off the edge of the boat landing. As you watch the pebbles sink down to where the sun doesn’t reach, you think hypothetically about drowning.  You wonder if your family would feel relieved if you were dead – if the secret bastard of the Potter-Weasley dynasty were erased from the family tree.

You sense that somebody is behind you.  You dare not turn around, lest you hope too much and fall too hard when you’re disappointed. 

“I can’t stand to watch you like this.”

It’s Scorpius. 

“Is that so?” you mutter bitterly, “You didn’t have a problem watching me before.” 

Scorpius sighs sadly, “You sound like your brother.  This isn’t you.”

“You talk like you still know me,” you spit, tossing a stone into the water spitefully. “Maybe you never really knew me.”

“I _do_ know you,” Scorpius insists gently, “And I want to get to know you more… because I love you, Albie.”

Your heart feels like it is contracting and shriveling up to the size of the pebble in your fist. You let the small rock tumble from your palm into the water without a word.  You miss Scorpius so fucking much, but you’re still so hurt by everything that happened, and you’re afraid to open yourself up again.

When you don’t respond, Scorpius says, “I’m ready to try understanding what it is you have with James.”

“Well, that’s nice,” you say sarcastically, “because I’m conveniently not talking to James at the moment.  But I guess you knew that, or you wouldn’t be speaking with me now.”

Scorpius’ tone ceases to be gentle.  “Al, I’m not some opportunistic parasite, and you bloody know it.  Up until recently, I was your boyfriend, for fuck’s sake.  I have never stopped loving you. Whether or not James is in the picture is irrelevant.”

“Yeah, but I’m sure you’re thrilled that James _isn’t_ in the picture,” you counter. 

“No, I am _not_ happy,” Scorpius huffs, sounding both offended and frustrated. “When I see you’re in pain, it bloody hurts me too.  And if I can’t be your boyfriend, then at least let me be your friend, because maybe I can help you stop hurting.” 

Scorpius sits down next to you.  You say nothing to each other for a long time.  The silence between you should feel awkward and tense, but instead, it’s comfortable.   And then finally, you relent, because you need your best friend.  You take his hand, and you hold it tenderly.  You rest the side of your head on his shoulder and it feels good to know that you have an ally.

But you can never go back to simply being friends.  You can’t change the way you feel about him.

“I never stopped loving you either,” you confess. 

He rests his head on yours and says, “I know,” devoid of arrogance.  You take comfort in the fact that he knows you so well that he could read your emotions even when you weren’t on speaking terms.

You heave a soft, forlorn sigh. “The problem is, I don’t think I can ever stop loving James, even when he hurts me.  I know it’s fucked up.  But no matter what he does, he’ll always be a part of me.  And when he’s not around, I feel his absence.”

“It’s okay,” Scorpius whispers.  He brings your hand to his mouth and he kisses it softly.  “I love every part of you - even the part of you that loves James.”

You meet his eyes – they are lucent blue and earnest, and you know you can trust him. You lean over and you kiss him softly on the lips.  It feels like you’ve found your way home after being lost for ages. You fall into place with one another like you were never apart.

And though you feel more like yourself again, you’re still incomplete. 

  

When Scorpius kisses you on the platform at King’s Cross, he knows you’ll need the summer to make yourself whole again.  Before he boards another train to the Malfoy summer villa in France, Scorpius promises he’ll be here in September, ready to take you into his arms, no matter if you’re still just a fragment of a boy, or part of something greater.

 

~//~

 

It was easier to avoid James when you were in separate parts of Hogwarts castle, but now that you’re forced to be in the same space, in the room that you’ve shared with him for sixteen years, you have to face him sooner than later.

You’re not scared that he’ll physically hurt you, you’re afraid he’ll disappoint you.  The agony of his betrayal had hurt more than anything.  You’re afraid that if you open yourself up to him again, he’ll just gut you like a fish.

You’re in your own beds tonight.  Even though you’ve got your back to him, you can feel his eyes on you.  You want to be creeped out by this fact, but you have always relished his attention.   Soon, you find that you can’t be content with just his eyes on you.  You want his hands on you – his mouth on you – his words in your ear and his fire in your heart.

When you cross the room in the dark to James’ bed, the dim moonlight streaming in through the window reveals that he had indeed been watching you.  You see the ocean tempest in his eyes and he reaffirms his ownership of you with just a look.

He smirks when you nudge him over with your knee.

“I knew you’d come back to me,” he drawls smugly. 

 

James is not like Scorpius.  Yes, James knows you inside and out like Scorpius does, but somehow James manages to use his knowledge as a weapon against you, whereas Scorpius had used it to strengthen your friendship.  Scorpius’ familiarity with you makes you feel safe, while James makes you feel powerless. You want to hate this power that James has over you.  But you turn that disgust inward upon yourself.  You are weak and you are nothing without his love.

 

“Shut up,” you mumble petulantly, pouting as you lie down next to him.

“And I knew you’d go back to Malfoy,” James adds with a bored air, “You’re both terribly predictable.” 

You scoff and start to roll off the bed, but he hooks his arm around your waist to keep you by his side.

“I’m not picking a fight with you,” James says calmly, “I’m trying to tell you that I accept it.  I hate it. But I accept it. And… I’m sorry for what I did on the pitch.  I’ll never do it again.”

“Promise me,” you insist, staring up at the ceiling to avoid being swayed by his stare.

“I promise, it will never happen again.  It was a one-off thing.  I lost myself for a moment.  You don’t know what you fucking do to me, Albie.”  He nuzzles his face into the side of your neck and you start to melt despite yourself.

You turn in his arms to face him and whisper, “Swear it.” 

He presses a feather-light kiss on your mouth.  “I swear.”

You take his hand and lace your fingers together. Your breath is hot on his parted lips.  “I want you to mean it.”

“I swear to you, Albus, on our dead cat’s grave," he says, with a tinge of playfulness that makes you giggle, "that I will never ever hurt you again.”

“Hux’s grave? Seriously? You’ve got to do better than that, James.”

The next time he looks at you, his eyes shine with adoration, not possession, and his words have weight and magic.  “I vow to you, Albus Severus, in the name of Athena, that I will never hurt you. With our ancestors as my witness, I swear that I love you.”

You bite your bottom lip as tears fill your eyes.  You know he hasn’t just invoked the name of a goddess.  He has invoked your true mother’s name.  You kiss him hard and your tears stream down to his mouth, binding his vow with salt and love.

His hand finds your hair.  His fingers feel strong and commanding – they could easily hurt you.  But he made a vow, and you want to believe him.

 

Before long, you and James are naked on top of rumpled bed sheets, sticky with summer sweat and buzzing with magic.  The door is warded and spelled to keep your secret safe.

You’re lying beneath him now.  He’s mapping every inch of you with his hands and his lips, with the fervor of someone who had been starving.  You feel just how much he has missed you.  His mouth finds yours again and his tongue is salty with your sweat. 

You’re moved to open yourself up to him completely.  As much as you’re afraid of getting hurt, you’d rather that it was James hurting you.  You know that, no matter how much he breaks you, he’ll always be there to put you back together.

“Jamie,” you whisper hotly, “I want to tell you something.”

His incessant lips reluctantly pause at the side of your neck.  “Tell me what?”

“I’m still…” you hesitate, worried that you’ll sound juvenile.  “I’m still a virgin.  Scor and I haven’t… erm…”

“Good,” he says, casually.

“Jamie, I… I was saving myself,” you finally breathe out, “…for you.”

He pulls back slightly to smile upon you adoringly.  For once, he’s not smug or arrogant.  His smile is genuine and hopeful.  “Promise you will?” he asks, and his uncertainty endears himself to you even more.

You link hands again, your fingers threading between his, “I vow to you, James Sirius, in the name of Athena, that nobody will have me before you. With our ancestors as my witness, I swear that I’m yours.”

James heaves a shuddering exhale before kissing you.  The salt you taste on your lips isn’t your tears or your sweat.  It’s the brine of James’ tears.

“I love you,” he whimpers.  “Oh gods, I love you so fucking much.”  You’ve never heard him sound so vulnerable.

He resumes ravaging you with kisses.  He takes his time tasting the parts of you that he’d been too rushed to partake of at school.  He turns you over and licks the notch between your shoulder blades, the dimples at the small of your back, the furrow of your arse.

Your shiver and whine and keen for more.  You rest on your elbows and knees, presenting yourself to him.  He spreads you open.  You feel like you could come from the heavenly sensation of his soft tongue dipping in deeper, lapping slowly at the most intimate part of you.

You take your leaking cock and stroke lazily, lost in this new kind of bliss.  Then you feel the sudden loss of him when he moves to whisper behind your ear.

“I want you.” He says it like he’ll die if he doesn’t have you.  “Please… Even just to touch you,” he pleads, his voice rising an octave with desperation.

“I’m yours.”

You blossom for him with deftly plied wet kisses and the trembling fingers of a novice. You’re pleased that this is just as new to him as it is to you.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he laments, as if this fact is both devastating and exhilarating.

You still have a long way to go before you can even entertain the prospect of taking James’ cock, not that you’re emotionally prepared for it. 

“Not tonight,” you tell him, as you fall away from him and roll onto your back.  For a moment, you wonder if he’ll lose control the way he had on the quidditch pitch.

But he respects your limits.  “Not tonight,” he agrees, as he cuddles up to your side.  “Tomorrow, maybe?” he jokes.

“Eager, Jamie?” you tease him.

“Gods, Albie, you really have no idea what you fucking do to me.” He slides a leg over yours and you feel his erection on your thigh.

Maybe you have a lot more power over him than you think.


End file.
